


Insanity

by TherapyBard



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Caleb Widogast Deserves Nice Things, Caleb Widogast Has Issues, Caleb Widogast Needs a Hug, Curses, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, POV Caleb Widogast, POV Nott | Veth Brenatto, Panic Attacks, Protective Nott | Veth Brenatto, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:54:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27659801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TherapyBard/pseuds/TherapyBard
Summary: After a chance encounter with some Bandits, Caleb starts having graphic thoughts of hurting the rest of the Mighty Nein. He does whatever it takes to make sure he doesn't act on them.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast, Caleb Widogast & Yasha, Fjord & Caleb Widogast, Jester Lavorre & Caleb Widogast, Mollymauk Tealeaf & Caleb Widogast, Nott | Veth Brenatto & Caleb Widogast, The Mighty Nein & Caleb Widogast
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942036
Comments: 17
Kudos: 130
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	1. Seeing Red

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Infliction (Confliction)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27221629) by [critical_shot_to_the_heart (RainingStarWars)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainingStarWars/pseuds/critical_shot_to_the_heart). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Self-Harm, panic attacks, graphic descriptions of violence (none of it actually happens), self-hatred.  
> This is based off of RainingStarWars's fic "Infliction (Confliction)" as well as their homebrew spell Pernicious Infliction. For more details, check out their fic.  
> For the Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt Magical Curse

Theoretically, Caleb should have felt no worse about fighting bandits than he did fighting monsters. Both wanted to hurt the group and, more often than not, both had no interest in talking things out. And yet, watching his  friends allies fight these dangerous yet ultimately much weaker people, there was nothing he wanted to do less than set them aflame. He would still do as he must. He always would.

In the end, most of the group fled before the Mighty Nein could do any real damage to them. One brave/stupid individual remained. He held his knife in one hand with the other in his bag. “You don’t want to make me do this,” the man said, his forced smile doing nothing to hide his fear.

Caleb took a step closer to him and lit a fire blast in his hand. “We already have the upper hand here. I suggest you-”

The man pulled a glass vial out of his bag and threw it at Caleb. It exploded on the ground in front of him, erupting into a puff of red gas. “Take that!”

Caleb coughed. He pulled his scarf over his mouth and nose before the gas dissipated into the air. “What was that!” Beau screamed. She held her staff to the throat of the bandit, who was now cowering on the ground.

“I don’t know! I got it from a shop. The guy said it’s a nasty curse. He didn’t say what it was.”

Once the coughing stopped, Caleb felt completely fine. Nott ran to him and began looking him over. “I am okay, my friend.”

Beau looked up at him before laughing. “You got scammed, man. The bottle didn’t do anything.”

“What? But… But-”

Molly put his hand on Beau’s shoulder. “No harm done, then. I’m pretty sure this group won’t be going after us again any time soon, right?” The bandit shook his head rapidly. “Good. Let the man go, Beau.” She did so with a sigh. The bandit wasted no time before getting and running after the rest of his sad group. “Didn’t even thank me. Shame.”

Jester took Caleb’s arm and got on her tiptoes to look into his eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay, Caleb?”

“Ja, I am sure.” He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but her frown remained.

“Fine, but if you grow another arm or something in a few hours you better tell me.”

“I promise you will be the first to know.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much, Jester,” Fjord said. “Shops sell fake things like that all the time.” He nodded towards their cart. “Let’s get moving. We’ve still got a few more hours left of sunlight.”

* * *

Fire.

Everyone was screaming. Yasha fought to pull Beau from the flames. Jester cried as she and Fjord ran, only for another fire blast to rain down on them. Nott stood in front of Caleb and begged him to stop.Caleb smiled, basking in the overwhelming heat as he aimed his next blast right at her.

* * *

“Nein!” Caleb woke. The heat was gone but the images continued to flash through his head. Nott’s corpse laid unrecognizable in front of him, dead before her body hit the ground. Molly’s coat burned, as did the rest of him. Screaming. So much screaming. There was no actual sound but he heard it in every way that mattered. He-

His vision came back. Molly knelt in front of him. “You need to stop that, darling. Just breathe with me.” Caleb felt pain in his arms. ‘Was I scratching them again?’ He let his hands fall to his lap, focusing on Molly’s breaths. “There you go. That’s good.”

“Should I go wake Jester up?” Caleb didn’t need to look up to recognize Fjord’s voice.

Molly put a finger under Caleb’s chin and titled his head up to meet his eyes. “Are you okay with that, or do you want to talk about what just happened first?”

Caleb shook his head. He couldn’t talk about that. How he burned them all to death. How he was happy to do it. “There is no need for that. I will be fine. I’ll just-”

“We both know you aren’t going back to sleep after that. Jester wanted last watch anyway. We were going to wake her and Beau up soon.”

He signed, exhausted from the panic attack and more-graphic-than-usual nightmare. “Okay, I can take watch with her. Thank you for… Thank you.”

“Of course.” Molly kissed him on the forehead. “Anytime.”

* * *

Caleb didn’t know much about pastries, but he tried his best to follow along with Jester’s ramblings. Thankfully, she was always more than willing to carry the conversation in the aftermath of Caleb’s episodes. “Cinnamon just makes everything better, you know? I mean, I guess not  _ literally  _ everything. I don’t think a cinnamon steak would be very good.”

“You won’t know until you try.”

Her eyes widened and she grabbed his arm. “Would you try it with me? Maybe we could buy our own cinnamon and put it on stuff.”

“Well, we could certainly try-” His vision went blurry and images flashed in his mind. He hit Jester. She fell on the ground with a scream. She could barely ask why before he shot a fire blast at her. He laughed as she-

“Caleb? Are you okay?” The real Jester shook him. “What happened?”

“I…” A new scenario played out in his head. He still pushed her, but this time her head landed right by his foot. He raised his right leg and slammed the foot down on her head over and over until- “I need to go.”

He ran into the surrounding woods and curled against a large tree. ‘Why is this happening? What’s wrong with me?’ The rest of the Mighty Nein joined his sick fantasies. He stabbed Fjord in the throat. He ordered Frumpkin to scratch out Yasha’s eyes.

He clutched his head and rocked back and forth against the tree as new horrific events played out in his mind. ‘Stop. Please stop.’ An image popped into his head of him burning his own arm off. Desperate to make this end, he lit a tiny flame in his hand and burned his arm. The images ceased and he found himself free with a small minor burn wound as the only cost.

“Perhaps my insanity is returning…” Well, if it was, at least he would have a way to suppress it this time.

* * *

Jester didn’t question Caleb once he made it back. She just asked if he was alright before continuing on with their conversation. That was one of the many things Caleb liked about her. No matter what happened, she would always go with the flow and stay as cheerful as ever. Sure, that was quite often a front and he would like it if she were to confide in the others more, but he appreciated that aspect of her quite a lot in moments like this.

The images came back a few more times before the others woke. He found it easy enough to claim he heard something and wonder off for a second to add another burn mark. Once they got traveling again, things got tricky. After all, his flames were quite hard to miss. He eventually decided upon taking out his knife and making small cuts when no one was looking. No one ever bothered him when they saw him reading, so diverting attention from himself was never difficult.

Eventually, the sky grew dark and the group had to stop. Caleb’s most recent ‘fantasy’ had been of him taking his knife and, after somehow managing to pin Yasha under him, taking it to her face and peeling off the skin. He cut himself before it could get too graphic.

“I can take first watch,” Caleb offered as he climbed from the cart.

“No, you don’t have to do that,” Yasha said. “Yesterday was supposed to be your day off from having to take a watch.”

“I don’t see why someone else should have to get less sleep when I am volunteering.” He pulled out the wire needed to cast Alarm. Just as he started, his vision blurred.

“Woah, Caleb. Are you alright?” Fjord caught his arm before he could fall over.

“Ja, I am just… Perhaps I am feeling a little bit sick.”

“Oh!” Jester ran over and cast a healing spell on him. “Did that help?”

Caleb nodded. “Yes, plenty. Thank you.” The blood loss he had accumulated over the day not affecting him nearly as much anymore, he carried on with the spell.

“I really think you could use some rest,” Yasha said. “Especially if you are getting sick.”

“It’s alright, Yasha. I’ll take watch with him,” Molly said, helping Nott and Beau set up their temporary camp site. Nott stared at Caleb worriedly. Caleb gave her a weak smile in an attempt to calm her down.

All of them settled in. Molly and Caleb sat together in the back of the cart. “You know,” Molly said, “there’s a town near here, probably a half-day ride. It’s out of the way, but it would probably have something there to help you sleep.”

“There’s no need to divert the group for me, but thank you.”

Molly shrugged. “Well, I’m sure everyone would be okay with it if you asked. I’m not gonna make you talk about it because it isn’t my business, but it’s pretty clear you need help.”

Caleb almost laughed. He didn’t remember exactly what happened the last time he ‘needed help’, but he never wanted to go back to that. ‘But what if I actually do need that. What if hurting myself is just putting off the inevitable. How can I be so selfish and risk hurting these people?’ “Thank you, but I think I will decline.”

Their watch went by without issue. The two of them laid down, but Caleb had no intention of sleeping. What if he lost control and hurt someone. He couldn’t do that. ‘Never again. They don’t deserve it.’ He stayed awake until morning, cutting when needed and hating himself more and more each time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed this. I did take some creative liberties with the homebrew spell, but I think it still turned out alright. Sorry I didn't post for a little while. I've been getting busier lately. Part two should be coming out soon.


	2. Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The others find Caleb in the morning bleeding and barely aware of his surroundings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Self-Harm, self-hatred, tying someone up against their will (for their safety)  
> For the Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt Kind Restraints. Thank you Doctor_Incubus for your prompt. I may not have followed it as you may have imagined, but it did inspire parts of this story.

Nott couldn’t help but glance over at Caleb every once in a while during her watch. She and Jester both sat over the edge of the cart. “Are you worried about him?” Jester asked.

“Yeah, of course I am. He’s been acting weird all day.” First he spent the entire day off in the corner of the cart reading, then he almost passed out casting the alarm spell. He then topped it all off by insisting on taking watch. “I wanna know what’s wrong.”

“Me too. He’s been all sad and stuff. I don’t like that.”

Both of them stared at their wizard friend, clueless of how to help him. He flinched in his sleep. Nott looked up at the sky. The sun began to peak over the horizon, meaning they should wake everyone up soon anyway. “I’m gonna check on him,” she said.

She tiptoed her way over to where he was sleeping. She almost jumped when she saw his eyes open wide. He gave no indication that he noticed her. “Caleb?” He flinched at the sound and began reaching for his knife. Nott knelt beside him. “It’s alright! It’s-” She went to grab his other arm and felt something wet. The smell of iron in the air became overwhelming. ‘How did I not smell this earlier?’ “Jester! He’s bleeding!”

“Coming!” Jester said. Other voices followed, likely other members of the group waking up, but none of it mattered. Nothing mattered besides Caleb.

He tried to push Nott away from him and brought the knife closer to the arm she had been grabbing. “Hey! Stop it!” She grabbed the arm welding the knife and attempted to fight it out of his grasp. Jester came up behind her and cast a healing spell on Caleb.

“What’s going on?” Beau asked. Nott finally freed the knife and handed if to her.

“No…” Caleb muttered. The now empty hand gripped the bleeding one and he began attempting to tear open the partially healed wound.

“Stop it!” Jester grabbed both of his wrists and pushed him onto his back. She sat on his chest, pinning his arms above his head. Fjord and Yasha knelt beside him to help and held down one arm each.

Caleb fought with all his strength to escape their hold. “No, I need to do it! I’m going to hurt you! Let me go!”

Nott could do nothing besides look at the scene before her in horror. ‘What’s happening? He isn’t making any sense.’

“Pull down his sleeves,” Molly said. He sat down between Fjord and Yasha with rope. “Sit him up.”

“What are you doing?” Nott tried to run forward and stop this but Beau put a hand on her shoulder.

“We need to restrain him until he’s calmed down.” With Fjord and Yasha’s help, Molly tied Caleb’s hands together over the cloth of his jacket.

“Please. I… I need to…” Tears streamed down Caleb’s cheeks as he fought against the bonds.

“Jester, use the highest level spell you’ve got,” Beau said.

“Got it!” She cupped his face with her hands. “Please, Traveller. He needs help.” Her hands glowed, but he continued his thrashing. “Oh no! What do we do?”

Fjord put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know, but we’ll figure this out. I promise.”

“But what-”

Caleb abruptly stopped moving. His muscles relaxed and he fell against Yasha. Blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. “You can untie me. I’ll be fine for a while.” His eyes were only half open, the bags under them clear now that the chaos was over. ‘Did he sleep at all?’

“No way, man,” Beau said. “Not after that.”

He nodded sadly. “I supposed that is fair. I didn’t want to frighten everyone. I just… I am not in my right mind, I don’t think.”

“You think?” Nott elbowed her. “What? It’s pretty clear something’s wrong.”

“I think… I… About every hour, I need to hurt myself or I’ll hurt one of you. I’ll be fine for a while now.”

“Every hour?” Yasha asked. “Do you mean exactly one hour?”

“No, it’s not…” His eyes widened. “You’re right. It has been exactly every hour after I images go away.” ‘Images?’

“Do you think it has something to do with the curse thing that bandit did?” Nott asked.

“I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes sense now.” He laughed. “I am so stupid for not thinking of that earlier. It makes much more sense than what I had thought this was.”

“Wait,” Fjord said. “What exactly is happening to you?”

Caleb’s relieved expression morphed into one of shame. “I… every hour, I get these visions of myself hurting all of you. I don’t… no, part of me did want to, but most of me didn’t. I don’t want to hurt you now. I didn’t know how to stop myself, and then I saw me hurting myself. I did that and the images stopped.”

“And, what, that was happening all day yesterday? Why didn’t you say something?” Beau asked.

He laughed. “What did you want me to say? ‘Hello everyone. I am going insane and will probably kill all of you if I do not hurt myself everyone once in a while.’ I can’t imagine that would have ended well.”

“Even if it wasn’t a curse, we would’ve figured something out. You should have to do this. Did you sleep at all last night?”

“I also don’t think you’d be insane,” Jester said. “You were just having some bad thoughts. I don’t think you would’ve actually hurt us.”

Molly nodded. “The fact that you were willing to hurt yourself before you hurt us makes it pretty clear those thoughts weren’t some sort of secret desire of yours or something like that.” He looked over at Yasha. “You can untie him for now. We should be good for another 50 minutes or so.”

She did so. Nott pulled him into a hug the second she finished untying the knot. “I’m sorry. You’re fine. We’re gonna fix this.”

Caleb hugged her back. “Thank you. I am very relieved. I very much so would hate to hurt you.”

Molly started packing up their equipment. “We should head over to the closest town to see if there’s a healer who can help him. On the way, we can test different ways of dealing with this curse. Maybe hurting one of us a little bit will also make the visions stop.”

Caleb shook his head. “Nein! I won’t do that. I can’t risk…. You don’t know the things I am envisioning. It is not simple burns or cuts. It’s…” He shuttered.

“I still think we should try. We can subdue you if we need to. I’d rather risk that than have you hurt yourself more.”

“And I’d rather hurt myself more than risk that.”

Nott crossed her arms. “No, Caleb. It’s either that or we tie you up the whole way. I’m not letting you-”

“Nott,” Beau said. She looked up at her and she shook her head. “We should let him deal with this how he wants to deal with it.”

“Nott looked back at her boy. His eyes were wide, as if he could think of nothing worse than being forced to see those images the entire trip. ‘She’s right. It would probably hurt him more to make him hurt us.’ “Okay, but Jester heals you every time.”

“Oh, of course!” Jester said. “I don’t want you to be in pain.”

Caleb frowned. “No, that’s hardly necessary. I never hurt myself enough to warrant healing.”

“Too bad!” Nott said. “That’s my final offer.”

He sighed. “Fine.”

* * *

Caleb laid in the back of the pretending to sleep. He didn’t share the other’s unfounded confidence that he would not hurt them and it would be safe for him to sleep as much as he could. Still, they worried for him. Caleb would do whatever he could to alleviate their concerns.

“Look at him,” Jester said. “He looks so cute when he’s sleeping.”

“A lot younger, definitely,” Fjord said.

“I can’t believe he just hurt himself like that. Was he really just gonna keep doing that until we caught him? That’s so sad.”

“Yes. He’s a lot more selfless than I’d thought he was.”

“Hey!” Nott said. “Caleb’s always been awesome. I’m not surprised at all.”

Caleb couldn’t help but smile at that despite the risk of betraying his sleeping façade. ‘Thank you for believing in me, my friend, but you are wrong. It’s not selflessness. I don’t hurt you because you don’t deserve the pain. I do.’

* * *

Caleb didn’t bother to pay much attention to the town once they arrived. In all honesty, he was not sure if he could have been alert if he had wanted to. Bone-deep exhaustion left him barely able to think, let alone look around. The others did that for him. Molly did most of the talking, asking every other person where the best healer in town was.

Eventually, they made their way to a shop on the other side of town. Everyone ran inside except for Nott (for moral support) and Jester (for healing if necessary). A few minutes later, a kind old man approached the cart. “Alright, dears, bring him over.”

Nott and Jester helped him make his way over to the end of the cart. He put a hand on Caleb’s head and muttered a few words. Caleb felt no different when he removed the hand. He said as much to the group.

“How do we know it worked?” Yasha asked.

“Pernicious Infliction is a nasty spell, but it’s also very punctual. You all can wait here an hour to make sure the poor boy doesn’t get any more of those visions.”

“Thank you,” Caleb said. He used what remaining energy he had to reach for his coin purse. “How much?”

“Oh, you’re friends already paid for you.”

Caleb looked over at Molly. “How much?”

The man laughed. “I like you, wanting to pay your friends back after going through what you just did. I’ve never been under the spell myself, thank the gods, but I’ve heard nasty things. You also don’t look like you’ve slept a wink. Don’t worry about the price. I only charged them 20 gold over the price of the components. Would have done it for free but I’ve gotta make a profit somehow. Can’t risk people hearing I’m willing to do this for free if it’s bad enough.” He pulled a vial out of his jacket. “Here, this is a sleeping potion. I’d normally charge 50 gold, but since you need it so much I’ll do 30.”

“Oh, that’s not-”

“Here.” Beau handed him some of her own gold.

“Oh!” He took it. “Thank you.” He handed Caleb the vial. “You’ve got some amazing friends here. That should knock you out for a good ten hours. You’ll wake up feeling more refreshed than you ever have before.” He looked around at the rest of the group. “Pleasure doing business with you all. Go ahead and wait out here until you’re sure the spell worked. Take the potion after that.”

Caleb watched him go back inside before reaching into his bag for 30 gold. “No, man, I’m not taking your money.” Beau said. “Now let’s do what he said so you can get some sleep.”

He sat against the side of the cart and waited the excruciatingly long 23 minutes until the curse should have kicked in again. Nott held his hand the entire time.

‘ Zehn, neun, acht, sieben, sechs, fünf, vier, drei, zwei, eins.’

Nothing happened.

Caleb laughed as tears of joy streamed down his cheeks. ‘Yes!’ The others noticed his reaction and cheered as well. He took the potion and allowed it to carry him off to sleep, secure in the knowledge that he would not hurt his anyone he cared about. Never again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Again, sorry for not posting as frequently as I had before. Other writing projects are taking up more of my time. Still, I hope you enjoyed this.  
> Doctor_Incubus's full prompt: insanity, past or relapse, we know Caleb was violent the first time he went, could be those soft fuzzy medical restraints they use now or something more like a strait jacket  
> Again, sorry for not fully utilizing this prompt. It is what inspired me to make it so Caleb thought he was relapsing, but I couldn't bring myself to write an actual relapse.


End file.
